'When your CM and deputy CM lose from their home LS seats, no amount of spin can mask the reality.'

Having recently won a spectacular victory in the Tripura Assembly polls — which many dubbed the beginning of a saffron wave in the northeast — the Bharatiya Janata Party’s sorry show in today's Uttar Pradesh by-polls serves as not only a shocker, but also a reminder for the ruling party that change alone is constant. Once again, the BJP has learnt that an alliance united against it can throw a spanner in the works.

This time, a temporary Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party coalition has paid off; they successfully managed to shake BJP’s strong footing in Uttar Pradesh, a state where the BJP won a landslide victory in 2017. SP's Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel won Phulpur (a seat vacated by deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya) with a margin of more than 59,000 votes defeating his nearest rival Kaushlendra Singh Patel of the BJP.

The bigger loss for BJP, however, came in the form of Gorakhpur — CM Yogi Adityanath’s recently vacated seat — where SP’s Praveen Nishad defeated BJP's Upendra Dutt Shukla by 21,881 votes.

Is this by-poll indicative of a shift? Here’s what the political pundits on Twitter have to say:

1)

If it was just a Phulpur loss it could have been explained away in that 2014 was the first time BJP won the seat, but Gorakhpur is the most saffron seat in UP dominated by it for 30 years. If they can’t even retain Gorakhpur it means every seat is now in play...even Varanasi.

When your CM and deputy CM lose from their home LS seats, no amount of spin can mask the reality: BJP's saffron surge in UP has been halted for now. 2019 maybe diff but for now these results open new possibilities for the anti BJP opposition in the key state. #ByPollResults

Don't forget that @myogiadityanath has held the #Gorakhpur seat for five terms. A knock in his bastion says all sorts of things about quick anti-incumebency; the power of a United opposition & the Indian voters innate instinct to keep some checks & balance #GorakhpurByPoll

In #UPByPolls is a reminder that Mayawati @BSP4India is critical to opposition plans. I wonder if she will reflect now on her support to Gowda in Karnataka - which will only help BJP by splitting anti-BJP vote. She remains King/Queen-Maker for 2019. May have larger ambitions

Lok Sabha Secretariat shows 274 seats on floor for BJP as on today. Now 2 more go down so this tally comes to precisely 272 right now. But only technically. For all practical purposes, 3 BJP MPs, ShotGun, Kirti Azad and one more from Maharastra are gone.https://t.co/z8VUKiwcIk

Bingo @SankarshanT . This is precisely the situation. In 2019 the BJP likely to do well in "Greenfield" states where it has been non-existent so far. But unlikely to replay the saturation performance in the states it is strong. Question is how much could be compensated? https://t.co/ljyxvri1xJ

BJP spokesmen blaming the defeat in UP on caste factors are making their case worse. They did this after Alwar and Ajmer as well without explaining why all castes came together in 2014 for ‘Sab ka saath, Sab ka vikas’.

Quite normal for a party in power to lose subsequent by polls. Suggests voter dissatisfaction. Not unique to India or the BJP. All Westminster democracies go through this. Optically doesn't look good for BJP but would be a stretch to mechanically extrapolate to 2019. #UPByPollshttps://t.co/l2LMmZa737

Anti-incumbency doesn’t need five years to ripe, it can hit in a year too. From low turnout to final verdict, Phulpur and Goarakhpur (constituancies CM-DyCM) signal that voters are getting brutally mature. #ByPollsVerdict